


Choaí

by batyatoon



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-11
Updated: 2012-03-11
Packaged: 2017-11-01 19:03:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/360192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batyatoon/pseuds/batyatoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>But traitors just get jeers and boos, / Not visits to their graves...</i><br/>"The Ballad of Booth", <i>Assassins</i></p>
<p>Set about a week after 4x14, "Blood On The Scales"; inspired heavily by the "Face of the Enemy" webisodes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Choaí

Louis Hoshi steps aside with a nod to let the civilian couple move past him, waits for a moment to see if anyone else is coming out, and then continues into the memorial hallway.

He's made a point of coming through here when he gets off duty, every day for almost a week now. Every day since. He knows the spot by now, knows the picture he's looking for, and can see it even from halfway down the hall; his step quickens -- and then slows when he gets a closer look.

He closes his eyes, and lets out a small weary sigh of grief before he opens them again.

For the first few days the picture was just missing. Two days ago it was torn to pieces and left scattered. Yesterday it was burned, probably using one of the nearby votive candles, and the last singed scrap dropped on the floor and crushed underfoot. Today it's still in place, but someone's scrawled the word TRAITOR across the face in red ink.

The worst part, he thinks wearily, is that there's no point at all in trying to find out who's doing it. If it's even just one perpetrator. It could easily have been a different person every time; there's no shortage of people with motive.

The defaced photo gets tucked into the folder he's carrying. A fresh photo comes out, one of the dozen or so copies he has left. Louis pins it carefully in place, straightens it, wishes yet again that there was a better picture available somewhere; this is the one from his personnel file, taken seven years ago. The young man in it is standing at earnest attention, face set in a formal nonsmile, hair clipped close to his head with military precision. He's twenty-one, and looks about twelve.

That hollow ache comes back full force as he studies the picture, and a tired internal voice says _Why do you keep doing this to yourself._

He doesn't have an answer.

At the sound of footsteps approaching, Louis turns quickly and starts off in the other direction, rubbing a hand across his eyes. There's enough violent feeling around the ship these days -- and enough under the surface of the repeated attacks on the picture -- that being seen putting it up strikes him as a bad idea. Not that he's keeping it secret, exactly.

But the last words Felix ever said to him were _keep your head down_ , and he means to.


End file.
